Barcelona v Las Palmas - The Debate Rages On.

The decision to play the game, against Las Palmas, on Sunday behind closed doors, has hit with a mixed reaction.

With the appalling brutality of the Spanish Police clear for everyone to see as they tried to prevent the Independence Referendum vote, Barcelona some serious soul-searching, felt the game had to be played as the Spanish League authorities wouldn`t give approval for the game to be postponed, prompting Josep Maria Bartomeu to issue the following statement,

'We very seriously considered the option of postponing the game, but we could not get the Liga de Futbol Profesional to approve our request.

'Having reached that point, I decided to play behind closed doors because we believed that the image of a football match being played in a completely empty Nou Camp would have been an act of responsibility and would have been a way of showing how we utterly reject the exceptional and inadmissible situation going on around Catalonia.'

However, somebody else, with close ties to the club, Pep Guardiola, had other ideas.

Guardiola, now managing Manchester City in the English Premier League, felt the game should not have been played, remarking

'I wouldn't have played the Barca-Las Palmas game, not at all.

'And if it did have to be played, then not behind closed doors. You do it with the public there. With all the consequences.'